It's a Date, Then
by AdmyralOperius
Summary: Another night on the job has Jeremy battling boredom and the occasional robot wandering into his office. Spoiler alert: he doesn't stay bored for long (Jeremy/Fem!Toy Bonnie fluff. A oneshot for Valentine's Day).


It's a Date, Then

Twelve on the dot. That meant it was time for another round of minimum wage roulette. Jeremy picked up his tablet to briefly check on the Puppet's box. No movement. Jeremy sighed and tossed the monitor back onto his desk and subconsciously adjusted the mask on his forehead. He'd been on this job for several weeks already and as such, he'd developed a steady, near 100% reliable rhythm of what was going to happen at what time. He pulled up the monitor again to look at the main stage. Freddy was the only one left.

"Already? Man, it's not even…" Jeremy paused. He frowned and checked his watch before continuing, "Ten after twelve! What's your guys' damage, huh?" He checked the camera, focusing on the Puppet again. No movement. He put the tablet down. He supposed he should be happy. The first couple nights, he'd been stressed beyond all hell. Getting assaulted on all sides by creepily happy kids' mascots had _not_ done any miracles for his nerves. He always considered himself more brave than average, but the first week was...humbling, to say the least.

The second and third week...passed. They passed like a kidney stone, but they passed, and Jeremy only had a small scar on his left arm from the Mangle to show for it. He supposed, at the time, he hadn't died, so...it wasn't all that bad.

The fourth week...was weird. It started off normally, as normal as it could get for _Freddy's,_ with him warding off a bunch of mental robots. But after Thursday, he got lost in thought, and before he knew it, it was twelve forty-five. The shock made him throw his mask on in a hurry, because he was _certain_ the animatronics wouldn't have let him sit idle for that long.

But they did.

Then, over the next few days, he noticed the music box stayed wound up longer than usual. Eventually, Jeremy only needed to reset it every two hours, which at that point, was a miracle unto itself. The others would still try and get into his room, of course, and from what he saw on the cameras, they _really_ hadn't changed. Or if they had, they hid it well. Operating on that logic, Jeremy had just decided to keep throwing the mask on whenever they popped their heads in. Better safe than sorry. Speaking of…

Jeremy flashed his torch down the main hall, but the light caught nothing out of the ordinary. He sighed and set the flashlight back down on the desk. He'd learned a long time ago that the flashlight was basically useless for scanning any rooms _but_ the main hall. He flicked the lights for the left vent on.

As soon as he saw the glint of yellow, he pulled the mask down. The lights began to flicker on and off. Jeremy only sighed and remained still. They started going faster and faster. In front of him, he saw Chica raise herself up after clambering out of the vent; she started to look around. If this had happened a few weeks ago, he would've been sweating up a storm. Granted, he wasn't exactly squeaky clean right now, but he'd managed to control his perspiration by some small amount; this was fairly normal by now.

Chica wandered out of the office a minute later, and Jeremy threw the mask back up, taking in a few breaths of clean air. For being so large, that empty head sure got hot and stuffy really quick. As previously mentioned, the animatronics may have been a bit more lax (or at least the Puppet had), but it didn't change Jeremy's cautious outlook on the whole situation. He'd gladly keep wearing the mask whenever one of them got into the office, even if they weren't actually going to be violent. Better safe than sorry and/or dead.

Banging in the vents quickly tore him out of this thoughts, and he hit both the lights for the left and right vents in quick succession. The left was empty, but he saw a light blue that didn't match with the light on the other side. Jeremy practically had the mask over his face before he realized what he was doing.

And then the lights started flickering again. Jeremy sighed, slowly and methodically. He never really liked Bonnie's way of "checking up" on him. The way she just seemed to slide across his field of vision was...chilling, to say the least. And for the first couple weeks, he noticed her irises and pupils would shrink whenever she was in the office. "C'mooonn...get it over wiiith…"

Jeremy saw her walking by him as the lights kept shorting. She was the only one who made direct eye contact with him, sidling by as if she was skating on ice, but eventually, the lights stopped again, and everything was quiet...but Jeremy noticed they were slightly dimmer than before.

He hadn't even caught his breath yet when he heard someone on his left whisper, _"Open up…"_

He felt his heart stop and his eyes shot themselves to his left. The mask was blocking his line of sight, but after hearing that voice, he could _feel_ someone standing there. His breathing hitched and then then came back faster and more shallow; for the first time in weeks, he'd been caught off-guard. For the first time in weeks, he _panicked._

"Knock-knock...I know someone's there," came the voice again. "I _know_ I ain't crazy."

Jeremy refused to move for minutes as the shock overrode any sense of a plan he had going. But he realized, after some time had passed, that he wasn't dead, and he slowly, _ridiculously_ slowly, turned his head to his left. Bonnie was bent over, hands on her knees and staring dead at him. The designers had her dressed in a snappy suit, like a magician's assistant; with her role as the glam rocker of the group, Jeremy never made sense of it. Her face was about par for the course as well, save for embossed and painted "freckles" and the prominent front teeth. As of now, she was staring into the eye sockets of his mask expectantly. Jeremy didn't move after that.

And he didn't need to, because after another minute of silence, Bonnie's lips curled into a puzzling frown and she slowly reached for the underside of the mask. Jeremy didn't move to stop her, one because he figured he'd be dead anyway, and trying to punch a metal robot would do as much good getting him out alive as drinking saltwater while dying of dehydration; two, because, as he was _not_ dead yet, maybe there was hope for him.

Bonnie lifted the mask up slightly. Then more. Then she had lifted it back up to rest on Jeremy's forehead, and contrary to his beliefs, she _didn't_ tackle him. She didn't even try; she only stood back up to full height and stepped back, and after a pause, smiled. _"Knew_ it."

"Uh…" Jeremy had, for the first time in years, come to a loss for words. "...Hi...?"

Bonnie, to his surprise, grinned at him fully. "Heya, buck." She put a thoughtful finger to her lips and added, "Hmm...Lookin' a little white there, buck. Surprised?"

"...Ye...Yes…?" Jeremy replied hesitantly.

" _Heh._ Don't be." Bonnie sat down on the edge of the table, right next to him, and continued, "I had a funny feeling somethin' about you didn't add up." Jeremy quirked an eyebrow at that statement, which she noticed, and made her giggle. "Need me to paint'cha the whole picture, buck?"

"I...guess…?" Jeremy replied again. "Although, you can just...call me 'Jeremy,' yanno…"

"'Jeremy,' huh?" Bonnie repeated. She paused a moment and laughed to herself. "That doesn't even _sound_ like an animatronic name! What're the other's thinkin'...?" She cleared her throat and straightened herself up, even going so far as to adjust her bowtie. "Well, Jeremy," she began, "you remember being here a few weeks ago?"

That made Jeremy scoff. "Pretty hard to forget," he admitted.

"Well," Bonnie continued, "after you kept hangin' around every night after two weeks, the others thought that, maybe, you wouldn't be gettin' gone anytime soon. Especially the Puppet." Jeremy shuddered when she mentioned its name; he'd only seen it poke its head out of its box once a few seconds before the music box wound down, and that made sure he did his damnedest to _never_ let it happen again. "And after how you handled being stuck in here for six hours at a time, everyone else just started assuming the higher-ups actually got an actual automated security system with an _actual_ endoskeleton doing most of the routine. Everyone except the Puppet...and me."

Bonnie's last comment struck Jeremy as odd and oddly specific. Bonnie herself just leaned down and tapped her temple with her index finger. "That's 'cause _I'm_ the smart one."

"No fake?" Jeremy replied with a smirk of his own.

Bonnie's smile got wiped off her face and came back a moment later as she leaned in even closer to Jeremy. "Try me, _buck."_

Jeremy chuckled. "A'ight, long as you don't kill me, I'll believe it," he said as he rolled his chair back slightly.

"Yeah, you will," Bonnie remarked. "Still, something I don't understand...why _are_ you still here, Jeremy? Kept hearin' you scream nonstop the first week." She sat back down on the edge of the table and added, "If I'm not mistaken, fear's powerful enough to make the toughest guys give up on what they're doin'."

The fact that Bonnie could understand human concepts like "emotion" actually caught Jeremy off-guard again and he struggled with the notion for a second before opting to deal with it later. "Well, I need money," he said. "Had to quit my last job when I moved, and this place was the closest place to my house that I could get to reliably within biking distance." He slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I had such a radical car, too."

"What happened to it?" Bonnie asked out of curiosity.

Jeremy sighed dejectedly and explained, "'Bout a year before I came to Illinois, I got in a crash." Bonnie instinctively winced, especially when Jeremy mentioned he was in the driver's seat. "The bum T-boned me on the corner of Middleton and State road eleven," he said, crossing his arms. "A'course, I guess even if I hadn't been in that crash, I probably woulda had to sell 'er off to pay for my apartment downtown. God, she was such a bodaciously badass car, too."

"Aw, man," Bonnie replied, "That sucks. How long were you in the hospital?"

Jeremy looked up, and actually had to think a bit before he sighed and said, "Can't remember the exact numbers, but I was cooped up in there for five months at least. Didn't get any visitors 'cept my sister."

"Hah!" Bonnie's sharp, mocking laugh made Jeremy jump. "I'd take bein' in the sick-house for five months over bein' in here for ten years!" She flipped her hair back over her shoulder and continued, "Don't get me wrong, it ain't _torture,_ but _man…"_ She trailed off and started giggling. "...I talked to Freddy for so _long..._ You'd be surprised how boring talkin' about the specifics of _Major Solar and The Strikers_ is."

"...You already lost me. I have _never,_ in my life, heard of that show," Jeremy deadpanned.

"I know!" Bonnie exclaimed. "And we only get _reruns_ in here without cable!"

"Good God," Jeremy muttered to himself. He couldn't help but let a single chuckle escape his lips. "Wish I could see more of that instead of…" He trailed off as he stared at Bonnie. "...You know. What I'm stuck with."

Bonnie's grin faltered slightly, but opted to reply, "Hey, it ain't gonna be too bad. The others may try to... _get you,_ but you got nothin' to fear from me." She shifted the crossed position of her legs, something that drew Jeremy's attention for half a second. Bonnie was noticeably pear-shaped, something he'd only taken in now because he wasn't fighting for his life. Combined with the snappy suit, she was quite pleasing to look at. But then he noticed her cheeky grin. "Well, _maybe_...don't be surprised if I try comin' into the office like I usually do…" she trailed off in a teasing voice.

Jeremy only stared at her wide-eyed for a moment before he shifted his gaze away and muttered, "...Please don't…" under his breath.

Bonnie must not have heard it, because she giggled and kept grinning at Jeremy. He couldn't help but smile, for some reason, when he saw her like that. It made him feel far safer than he actually was, that was certain. Unfortunately, that feeling was lost when Bonnie sat up completely straight, her ears perking up and going rigid, and it made Jeremy jump in his seat. "Bonnie…?" he asked hesitantly, "What just-"

He was abruptly silenced as Bonnie leaned over and shoved the Freddy mask over his face, which made him grunt on account of the surprise and the rough way she handled it; he was fairly certain he had a bruise and a small burn after that, and he was about to ask what had gotten into her when he saw Chica climb back out of the left vent. That's when it occurred to him he hadn't checked the cameras _once_ in the past ten to twenty minutes. He noticed Chica look directly at him, and then quirk an eyebrow to look at Bonnie. "You talking to the endo now, Bubblegum?"

She said nothing in response, and made sure Jeremy didn't say anything by pressing down on the mask. Bonnie was flashing an innocent smile so wide her teeth could have been used as a mirror. Chica only shook her head. "Your circuits must be fried somewheres. Freddy's gonna have'ta look at'cha, I think."

"Really, Chica?" Bonnie replied flatly, completely losing her smile. "If you're gonna stay here and make fun of me, ya better beat it before I call that mangled pile of scrap in here. Or _you-know-who,_ doesn't matter."

Chica stared from Bonnie to Jeremy and back again before she curled her lips into a small frown and shrugged. "Never mind," she said as she walked away, "you sound just 's natural as ever." Bonnie continued to lean on Jeremy's head until Chica was out of the room and safely out of earshot before she turned back around and hoisted the mask off his face, just as unceremoniously as when she forced it down.

He grunted again from the rough handling, but other than being a bit shaken, he was surprised his heart rate hadn't skyrocketed through the roof. "Thanks. Think you just saved my ass," Jeremy murmured.

Bonnie kept staring back down the hall to make sure Chica wouldn't come charging back in before dusting off her sleeves and sighing in relief. She turned back to Jeremy and said, "You're welcome."

"...Actually, I gotta admit," Jeremy said. "I don't think I've had this much...well, _fun_ in weeks. Can't believe I'm callin' this 'fun...'" he muttered before he glanced back up at Bonnie. "Would you mind comin' back in here every once in a while?" She looked back down at him and quirked an eyebrow, prompting him to add, "Help keep me awake and on my toes."

She didn't say anything to him; just a smile on her lips as she bent down and grinned at Jeremy. "That so…?"

"Well...yeah," Jeremy replied, tugging at his collar. "Gets pretty... _boring_ in this office if...y'know, I only got myself to talk to."

Bonnie put a thoughtful finger to her lips and hummed as if she was thinking about his offer. Jeremy didn't have time to react when she bent down to cup his right cheek and kiss him on the opposite side. He could only gasp in surprise, and she quickly whispered in his ear to curb any attempts to talk. "Then you've got yourself a _date,_ buck."

She didn't wait for a response, instead sliding over the office desk and traipsing back down the main hall almost tauntingly before she disappeared into the darkness. Jeremy could only sit there dumbfounded and watch her go, but eventually he gained enough motor control to pick up his tablet. First thing he checked, almost on reflex, was Prize Corner. The music box was just now on its last legs, and he quickly rewound it. Then he flipped through the party room cams and hallway cams in rapid succession. Balloon Boy and Chica were out and about again, and then he stumbled on the camera to Room Five.

Bonnie was standing right in the lit space of the area, and she must have seen the camera light up as active, because she glanced up in surprise and quickly smiled, gave him the peace sign, and stuck her tongue out cutely. Jeremy found himself smiling and waving back before he realized just _what_ his life had come to and he forced the monitor down. He tossed it on the table and sighed; he was missing her presence already.

This was gonna be a long week. But unlike every time before, maybe it was gonna be a _good_ week.


End file.
